“From Date to Mate” Update

That’s the name of a mock reality show available online on Shalom TV. It’s about four single Jewish twenty-somethings in Manhattan who have agreed to have their online dating life followed by t.v. cameras for eight months. I’ve watched the first two episodes, and two things strike me. First, because Shalom TV is aimed at a Jewish audience, it doesn’t have the constraint that seems to require all mainstream Jewish t.v. characters to only be “background” culturally Jewish (e.g., Seinfeld), and to have non-Jewish partners (e.g., Paul Reiser on Mad About You) . Second, despite the fact that it’s clearly a low-budget show, the writing is very good. In particular, it has the most realistic first-date dialogue, with all its awkwardness and potential, I’ve ever seen.

UPDATE: I was under the impression that all of the dialogue was scripted, but according to one of the actor’s blog, some of it is improvised, which perhaps explains its realism.

New episodes have been released excruciatingly slowly, but here’s number 4, the “Passover episode”; the show continues to grow on me. And, fwiw, the commenters who checked it out after I blogged about it were very enthusiastic.